How Avanceon now charges a premium for being in Pakistan

आपको मालूम है कि Pakistan की parkour pipeline FIFA World Cup twenty twenty two in Qatar, Dubai, रियाद और दोहा metro और मस्जिदल हरम project के पीछे क्या commonality है? इन तमाम projects पर एक पाकिस्तानी company ने काम किया है and I wanna tell you more about them. Avension Limited is a पाकिस्तानी industrial automation company listed on the Pakistan Stock Exchange and together with his sister concern Octopus Digital they're both worth over 37,000,000,000 rupees. Last year सिर्फ़ Avension ने $58,000,000 का revenue किया था और इस साल इनकी तीसरी सालग़राह पर इन्होंने $100,000,000 का target बनाया है revenue का under their road to 100 plan. Avension operates in Pakistan, The Middle East, Africa and The United States and today I am at their regional office in Dubai to talk to their founder and CEO, भक्ति अरवाइन to understand how he built his empire and his thoughts on what the future holds for Pakistan and the region. गुथियार साहब thank you so much for being part of the show. Thank you for inviting me. मैं थोड़ा सा start करूंगा just trying to understand कि आप पैदा किधर हुए और early life आपने कहां पर गुज़ारी? पैदा मैं भावलपुर में हुआ. Right. Because my father used to be there. वह

पढ़ाते थे सादेव public school में. Right. So then he moved to सरगोधा. Right. So जो main life गुज़ारी वह सरगोधा में ही गुज़ारी. अच्छा. Growing up और वहां A four school में PF model school. My father was the principal of that school. अच्छा. So I went to that school. So he was an educator all his life? All his life. Was your mother working as well or she was No, my mother was not working. Interesting

and so

FSC तक आपका वहीं पर schooling हुई या फिर then you moved? जी, FSC का I think first year वहां हुई हुई फिर then I moved to FC college लाहौर. अच्छा. तो a year and a half I was in FC college and then to engineering university. Interesting and how and what year was this जो आपका high school का था? College का? School का till '76 until '78 in '76 to '78 in FC college. Right. And then engineering

law. Engineering university being UET? UET law. वह कैसी थी उस ज़माने में? उस्माने बड़े उसके हालात मतलब किस तरह? What I you are have had a lot of guests from the eighties जो कि UET से graduate किए

I think the university was closed due to some riots. It was some political. I think it was the time of भूटो and his going away or whatever or the coup. Right. तो turbulence पर जैसे ही वह we joined so the university was closed for about six months. So the start was quite auspicious. फिर वह यह चलता रहता था but it was not a very good time. I mean so on and off with all of that turbulence

अगर आप as a student उसके अंदर गए थे छह साल में आपने degree complete की. How was the education part of it? Like was it just कि यार बस degree क्योंकि modern day में यह ख्याल आता है कि जो government university होती हैं वह तो बस एक photocopy machine की तरह degreeयां छाप रही हैं. आप लोगों के time में ठीक है turbulence थी but क्या actual में जो education जिस time पर हो रही थी वह actual impact थी? देखिए I I it was in part. Some of the parts

of that education or some teachers were outstanding. अच्छा. And then they would they would make it an effort and make it a point कि उन्होंने वह पढ़ाना ही है और वह transfer करनी है knowledge. लेकिन जब ऐसे हालात हों तो some people don't even do that. So it was a mixed bag. क्योंकि जब turmoil होगा तो वह कुछ लोग फिर उसका advantage लेकर वह होते थे लेकिन generally it was a great experience. The the good thing about those days was जो कि मैं अमूमन कहता हूं कि उस वक्त यह universities were a very homogenous society.

Ok, what do you mean by that? Homogenous because देखिए

जिस तरह अब एक say an example would be जिस तरह वैसे ही education divide हो गई है A level, O level और दूसरा so so those guys a part of the society or one kind of students never go to even colleges. So if you say FC college, so I would say 30% or 20% of the kids don't even see a college like FC college or government college or a college where everybody of every walk of society comes in. तो engineering university भी उस वक्त उसी तरह की थी सारे लोग आते थे. अमीर का बच्चा भी है, गरीब का बच्चा भी है. हां तो उसके साथ अगर जो कुछ तो learning आपने education की करनी है और कोई दूसरी learning. Social learning. Social learning तो वह बहुत थी and then then agreed some of the होती नहीं थी classes, delay हो जाते थे exam यह सब कुछ चलता था लेकिन generally

it was an interesting time to spend I would say. अगर मैं आपसे पूछूं आपका batch उस वक्त मेरे ख्याली क्या होता है तीस चालीस लोगों का होगा engineering का? नहीं नहीं नहीं.

ढाई तीन सौ तो सिर्फ mechanical engineering में थे. अच्छा. No no it's still I mean with the UET used to have a huge batch. And are you still connected to friends from university? Some of them. जो मेरे close friends थे उनसे तो बिल्कुल connected है. हमारा वह chat group भी है. Right. जो जो हम roommates थे and we like six or eight who were together during those four years we are still connected.

If I were to ask you to look back ढाई सौ का batch था उसमें से let's assume के दो सौ एक certain time पर graduate किए होंगे. Do you think के they were fairly successful? Most of them? लेकिन

that's a very interesting question. Very successful. Really? Most of them? A lot of them. I mean, are PhDs, some are, I mean, went abroad. So I mean scholarships बहुत होते थे. I got a scholarship. I didn't go. It was up till PhD. लेकिन all of them have done very well. One of my roommate retired as the MD of OGDCL. He he probably was the first one who joined as a trainee engineer in OGDCL, did his PhD from Imperial College all on scholarship and went on to become an M.D. तो ऐसे भी और ऐसे बहुत हैं. So you graduated in 2084. 1984. And उसके फ़ौरन बाद what did you do? I I started a job in four g fertilizer and then I moved to Exxon chemicals and these are my two major work experiences a little while in ICI but these are the two major work. और कितने साल तक़रीबन ये jobs किया आपने? Four years. अच्छा. Four between four years आपने सारी तीनों switch कर ली थी. हां हां तीन वह तीसरी तो बहुत थोड़ी थी लेकिन मतलब है कि basically yes four years. Let me put it like that. अगर I still am in touch with all my colleagues, my bosses and they have been always very kind although सिर्फ चार साल का surprising बात है कि चार साल के अंदर भी आप कैसे दो तो बहुत they have been very kind जिनसे भी बात करूं लेकिन कोई yeah I was doing well there also in fact quite well as far as I remember लेकिन मेरा कोई interest नहीं रहा. अच्छा. कि वह corporate ladder and वह जो एक पूरा atmosphere होता है I was not cut out for that. I feel that way now. But then that's the question right? For a lot of people, for a lot of young people जो कि

किसी job पर होते हैं, your father being educationist you weren't loaded.

Not at all. Right so Absolutely

not nothing actually. Right so eighties आप फौजी fertilizer को छोड़ना, एक zone को छोड़ना यह बड़े decisions हैं to be very honest for a young person.

How are you able to Maybe I didn't change talk that much. देखिए risk आसान होता है जब आप young हो. I think probably now you know what because a lot of time in hindsight you can come up with a lot of philosophy and you know you you you can talk about intellectualize things. हां you that's correct. So you can intellectualize it but I think थोड़ा सा अगर आपकी I would say a little bit of self confidence makes you do that not too much intellect but you say कि देखो I will try out a few things and I might be back. So rather than risk taker you are more experimental. Experimental risk I mean risk तो होता ही है the game. Risk तो होता है when you leave my job like that and I I don't promote कि हर बंदा यह करे क्योंकि यह जो बहुत सी है ना ऐसी बातें होती हैं कि हर बंदे कौन. I mean it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone. वह personality भी है वह आपका वह भी है. And in in

my colleagues from there have done phenomenally well also. Right. They are very successful individuals. This was just something that was more connected to who how you were as a person. हां हां तो उसमें you

know you water flows in the direction of least resistance. You you you try to follow a bit of things that you been

thinking about and that's it. Makes sense. So four and a half years you did these jobs. What happened next?

Then I I you know my cousin he had done his computer. He had come back. He just started so. वह क्या कर रहे थे वहां? वह computer हमने एक it was a computer outfit which in those days there was this little bit of revolution going on कि you would, the whole thing about IBM compatible computers where you would import, you would assemble and a very reasonably powered computer of that time. I mean, with आजकल के computers से तो वह तो मज़ाक होगा. तो वह एक आम आदमी की reach में आ रहा था और आम business की reach में आ रहा था. We were the pioneers of, so he, you know, I joined that it had been about I think a year that he had started so I joined in as a year and we took that business forward. Interesting and my understanding is कि उस time पर यह ज़्यादा

B2B चल रहा था because like offices would be able to afford computers at the time. This is early nineties or late eighties. या घरों में भी जा रहा था. I bought

a computer with three years of my saving as a bachelor. So I I my the the salary at that time was probably among the top one two percentile in Exxon. So bonuses and all that. So I bought an XT computer at that time with my almost lifetime savings of three years. Interesting. तो लोग लेते थे. Why did you decide? And when I bought that computers by the way four G for Tizer did not have a computer.

So I mean why did you do that? Because out of interest. Late eighties did you think Total उस interest. अगर आपसे कौन channel करें वह वाली energy? आपको पता था कि यार यह जो computer चीज़ है यह वह दुनिया बनाएगी जो आज की दुनिया वन चुकी है? 100%. यह तो खत्म पता था. यह तो पता था कि this is this is I mean the things that I could do.

Because of your experience working on them basically. I agree. The the things that I would do in the office and I would spend hours doing those calculations. तो simple जब मैं excel उस वक्त होती थी lotus one two three. Right. तो मैं वह experiment भी जब करता था मैं कहता हूं तो this will just be a turn around. Yeah. You you you know. जब productivity increase है which is so phenomenal. Phenomenal वह देखिए अब तो you have to be extremely creative to do some productivity. वह तो step jump थी. वह तो जो उस वक्त नहीं समझते थे and there was so much pushback. I remember लोग हंसते थे कहते हैं computer खरीद लिया है, क्यों खरीद लिया है? But it was if I recall correctly अब यह तीस, पैंतीस साल की बात है. तो it was not कि अच्छा मैं समझूंगा you could clearly say कि इसको कभी समझने आनी है इसको समझ आएगी. Organizations who would jump to it, who would not jump to it. Who would so so it was a it was a step thing at that time. Some people embrace that and some people did not and they had to take another ten years to embrace that. तो वह मुझे तो कोई doubt नहीं था कि this is whether the business could be successful or not that's a total different you know उसकी reasons फ़र्क़ हो सकती हैं उसमें आपने कैसा business plan बनाया है वह हो सकता है लेकिन यह चीज़ आ गई है या दुनिया तब्दील हो रही है इस पर कोई शक नहीं था. Make sense.

जो business itself था वह basically what you were doing was कि आप hardware को import करके so आप hardware and software पूरा end to end solution है आपका? हां

end to end solution करते थे. Right. और उसमें training भी देते थे. I used to do a lot of corporate trainings. यह Lotus one two three का man. I was a like I I tend to believe that I was very good at that and बहुत corporate trainings मैंने कराई हैं. Almost lot of corporates. You name it and they I would go there and train the higher management. तो उसमें हम एक three sixty degrees देते थे कि सब कुछ करके देना है but it was very taxing thing because we didn't have capital. Right. And when we didn't have capital and we had taken a huge step to do all that तो उसमें थोड़े तो but yes we used to do everything. And you used to like import वगैरह भी सारा खुद बने थे. सारा खुद.

Was that I am trying to find the right word but was that problematic because

आप लोग engineer लोग हैं, पढ़े लिखे लोग हैं. Suddenly now you have to deal with port के साथ import होनी है. बस Yeah Pakistan की. सब तो आसान नहीं था. ना import export की जो खपे होती हैं और उसमें दलित में पैसे लो और पैसे लो. Huge learning, huge learning और दूसरी उसमें problem जो major problem थी कि we were honest. We had made up our mind कि हम एक पैसे की भी नहीं करेंगे जो आप कह रहे हैं कि पैसे देने पड़ते हैं. तो उसमें बहुत मसला आते थे. उसमें तो उस ज़माने में तो LC खोलने के लिए चार जगहों पर दफ्तरों में जाना पड़ता था. अच्छा. So people don't know. You you had to go to the bank. Bank used to give a document. You go to, they used to be something called chamber of import and export. Not उससे जाकर आप approval लेते थे. फिर वह foreign exchange वह allocate करते थे. फिर आप bank में तो वह एक Nightmare था. But I don't recall it as anything that I would say कि मैं बहुत torture से गुज़रा हूं. That was part of the time. That's it. But but यह बहुत थी और like you said कि वह जब आप बिल्कुल एक असूल बना लेंगे मैंने इस step से चलना है तो हैस्सा और बढ़ जाती है and वह दिन भी बड़े difficult थे. वह मतलब in a way that people didn't understand. Nobody used to, I mean, why would anybody finance computer imports? And so these things लेकिन that was a great opportunity to learn every process in the business. क्योंकि आपने खुद करना होता था ना? तो वह positive

side was that. How long did you guys sustain this business?

I think around

six to eight years and then it branched off to something. And six to eight years so from the time you started till six years

growth किस level की हो चुकी थी? Growth तो हो रही थी लेकिन it was as I said very taxing on us it was very and it was like we were doing a lot of things which was beyond our core expertise like imports and all that like you said. But we had to do that because at that time the market was not well developed. देखिए, I mean I can, a lot of mistakes that we made. I mean of course when when you start and you have no experience of business, you just have ideas you make tremendous amount of And you were in your twenties by the way. Of course, तो you you make those mistakes in in in at an intellectual level, at the understanding level of business. So that's fine. लेकिन if I look back so these were some problems that you needed to have because what do you do? If you if you you wanted to give that solution कि training भी कराएंगे तो तभी लोग लेंगे ना so the idea was very good कि जब तक आप पूरा काम करके नहीं देंगे तो कोई भी

नई technology And पर नहीं lot of ways you were also creating that demand इसमें. Yes. Right वह यह नहीं था कि market में demand ready है आपने बस माल बेचना और आगे निकल जाए. तो agree. तो उसकी वजह से ही देखिए वह वह जो सारी चीज़ें थी उसकी वजह से जो businesses evolve हुए और जब हैं

I think that was a great stepping stone for us to be able to do that. Interesting, so

six to eight years आपने किया इसको उसके बाद फिर what happened? उसने उसी

से evolve हुआ ना देखिए इसके अंदर we used to go to industry, add industrial experience. The other partner who was a software आमिर वाहीन, so so that business totally transformed into a software business she led and and because I had industrial experience, उसके अंदर जो software industrial automation का part है we started doing that and that that these both things got a lot of traction and that was the real emergence of two new businesses that we had to chase and follow.

Makes sense two questions. पहला जो आपका यह evolve होकर industrial और automation का business बना यह Pakistan में उस time पर हो रहा था उस time पर. हां हां हां हां अच्छा दूसरा यह है कि how did you make these industrial connections? Question और context यह है.

यह एक question बहुत से लोग पूछते हैं. अगर यह issue है ना किसी को so then he should not enter the business world because देखिए यह idea को sell करना अगर नहीं आता and you are not willing to open doors and you are not willing to hack it on the road then you are not cut out for business. देखिए जब आप कोई ऐसी चीज़ शुरू करते हैं तो you are alone. आप नहीं जाना है, आपने किसी तरह भी होना है, किसी से मिलना है. आपने अपनी value proposition बनानी है. आपने prove करना है and this whole value proposition I may have evolved into a person who can now communicate much better but at that time also I would sit down and think about it कि मैंने पहली बात क्या करनी है? उसने अगर मुझे पांच minute दे दिए total पांच minute तो how will I make an impact? So यह चीज़ें तो यह सिर्फ unique Pakistan या किसी ऐसे बच्चे के लिए नहीं जो यहां है यह this is unique to world.

कि sir मेरे पास एक idea है sir यह है वह है if if you had to give feedback कि what is what are the few things जो कि they do incorrectly today because I know I have that experience where people would come up and they would demand two minutes of my time but जब वह time मिलेगा ना तो उनको उस वक्त वह सोच लोगे कि मैंने बोलना क्या है मैं तो time है. So so it's all about preparation. देखिए अगर

आप I have even मैं कोई ऐसा नहीं क्योंकि So I मैं जब जाता था मेरे पास script लिखे होते थे. ऐसा भी हुआ है कि अच्छा sales conduct कैसे करूंगा? I'll ask this question if he says no what do I have to do? अगर उसने इससे out किया तो मैं Sir पूरा war game करके गए हैं. War game मतलब अब now that I I have learnt more I would call it a war game. I didn't know that it was a war game. Right. देखिए वह तो इत्तेफ़ाक़ से क्योंकि मैं तो survival mode में जानना था कि मैंने यह पूछना है. आप कैसे करेंगे? अगर मेरी मेरा competition multinational से था सिर्फ. हां, I mean here there is a essentially a kid right like 20. So how do I do the multinational man? What value are you at adding? तो वह उसमें training क्या I'll be so जो भी आपकी unique proposition है आपने वह लेकर जानी है अगर आप business शुरू कर रहे हैं और वह बहुत धनी कामयाब होगी और आप में इतना दिल गुर्दा जज़्बा होना चाहिए कि उस failure को भी माने आगे जाएं but you have to make an overall strategy which should span like years and not कि आपने थोड़ा सा किया यह तो नहीं होता अब मैं क्या करूं ऐसे नहीं हो सकता. Perseverance भी बहुत ज़्यादा importance

सकता. उसको यह होता है कि यार local जो है वह it's not very well thought out but you came in as a पाकिस्तानी company working with some of the some of Pakistan's top industries probably competing with multinationals जो कि बड़े well established brand names थे, right? How were you able to convince your local partners कि listen we can deliver what you know otherwise these global brands can as well? देखिए

again a lot of it is hindsight. Nothing succeeds more than success. जो देखिए यह मेरा responses पर यह है कि बहुत दफा यह वैसे ही हमारा जिसे कहते है ना head trash होता है. अब सेठ नहीं मानता. Suppose यह एक मैं कहता हूं this is head trash. क्यों है? किसी ने आपको बताया हुआ है. आपने सौ दफा try किया है. I will ask these questions जो आपको कहेगा कि अच्छा कितनी दफा try किया? क्या आपने कोई different methodology use की to address that? क्योंकि नहीं हम तो यह पूछते कि जी यह कर देगा. तो अगर आप उस head trash के साथ चलते रहेंगे तो वह किसी ने आपको बताया है आप वही आगे propagate कर रहे हैं and that is something कि जब मैं देखता हूं ना industry में कि कोई senior आदमी head trash pass on कर रहा है youngster को, I genuinely believe कि सबसे बड़ी disservice यह है और यह वह क्यों कहते हैं? वह इसलिए कहते हैं कि उनको कोई वह कहेगा नहीं नहीं यार तुम्हारी नहीं सुनेगा वह. अब उसने अपने ज़ेन में बना लिया यह. वह जब रोज़ यह absorb कर रहा है तो वह यही बात कर Basically कोशिश करना छोड़ देते हैं. कोशिश करना ही छोड़ देते तो वह I think देखिए अगर say ठीक है ना अब तो यह loves बड़ा मुझे strength देखिए वह businessman है. हां. आप so ऐसे तो नहीं हो सकता कि एक आदमी business चला रहा है और उसमें कोई चीज़ समझने की capability ना हो. ठीक है. Ok you can say कि वह तंग नज़र होगा,

Exactly. Cost cut होगी या optimization होगी या productivity बढ़ेगी तो these principal things पर तो हर businessman. हर business and and then देखिए

जिस तरह हमने यह business में उस वक्त जब हम यह business शुरू कर रहे थे तो बहुत सी मैं industrial automation की बात करता हूं. So they were some competition, they were new and then they were very bright people who were a few of them who were doing it in competition with us, probably brighter than us. I mean मैं हमने एक principal decision लिया कि हमने hardware भी नहीं invest करना. Right. We will use world's best equipment. ठीक है. But हमारी value addition है that we eliminate the engineering which comes from abroad.

Ok, the the the soft component basically. All soft component, assembly, integration.

And then we realize that internationally also the Pakistan में शायद कम लेकिन internationally and this is the analysis that we did at that time कि 30% component एक project के अंदर material का होता है. Even हम उल्टे भी हो जाएं तो we cannot compete with that. They are billions of dollars का. So हमारा but yes, if we have confidence in our ability, we can fight inch to inch, foot to foot with anybody who can come from abroad and do a project. So now that was a value proposition. कबाहत क्या थी कि हमने वह सीखना था, team बनानी थी, invest करना था on human resource. So वह जब आप यह strategy हो तो आपको कुछ तो इसलिए maybe थोड़ा फ़ायदा हो गया. हम value तो यही डालते थे कि देखिए यह तो वही आप चीज़ें तो ठीक है. Every time से हमारी value यह होती थी कि we are a local call away. But yes, they were doubts by the industry that whether we'll be able to do the project. कुछ नहीं अच्छे किए होंगे, आइस था, आइस था. But we हमने जो अपने लिए goal रखा,

बड़ा clear रखा. यानी कि हर चीज़ को replace कर देंगे. Value property के एक तो आपका overall project system में deliver होगा या system में नहीं होगा availability

twenty four seven. I am trying to understand. System में तो होता था. देखिए engineering component हमारा उस वक्त. अब genuinely we we take premium over multinationals. अब आप experience का basically charge कर रहे नहीं, हम experience देखेंगे हम जितने experience होंगे और कोई जो fortune जो जो प्रति से how they can't give a support like our support. Right. हो ही नहीं सकता. We have 300 engineers को बाहर से आकर आपको proposal दे रहा है चाहे वह सस्ती भी है तो it doesn't make sense. Right. Now we are at a position that if somebody is not invested in the market, say in मैं सिर्फ Pakistan की बात आपको करता हूं. If I am a customer तो मुझे आप आगे के देखेंगे, come to our office and go to, I don't want to take the names of competition but consider any 34 methods जो industrial automation के high wood के चलें उनको भी जाकर देख लें, हमारे यहां भी आकर देख लें. हमारे पास support का structure क्या है? वह आपको एक international call करनी पड़ेगी. वही ज़रूर कहते हैं कि जी आप महंगे तो कभी इसलिए महंगे कि we have we have invested so much. If I have to sell outside with no support और ऐसा भी हुआ है कि कई customer से मेरी यह बात हुई. मैंने कहा अच्छा तो आप कह रहे हैं उनसे तो मैं अगर इस तरह बाहर जाकर कोई दुकान खोल लूं और एक ही बंदा हूं और जाकर बेचूं तो मुझे कोई बाहर की का मुल्क इस तरह या कोई customer इस तरह करेगा जिस तरह आप मुझे कह रहे हैं. So jokingly you can say so so we now command actually premium because we are in Pakistan. It has it has inverted.

Makes sense. थोड़ा सा मैं आपको pull back करता हूं. आपने बोला industrial automation explain that to me like I was a six year old कि what exactly were you doing? Were you basically helping businessman investors setup their industry, their new industry या were you optimizing their existing industry? मतलब एक बड़े simple तरीके से हो क्या रहा था actual में जो जो देखिए काम आपके यह आपका सवाल अच्छा है. यह तो

लेकिन bankerओं को भी इस तरह explain करता हूं और सबको तो ऐसा यह मैं तो I was just absorbing that how how I should start which I have already. देखिए have you ever visited an industry? Yes. कौन सी? Textile.

Ok.

So textile could be an example. We don't do too much work there but अगर आप देखेंगे तो अगर आप पुरानी textile में जाएंगे तो काफी चीज़ें manual हो रही होती हैं और बिल्कुल नई textile में जाएं तो वही अगर इसमें नहीं है तो वह सारी एक central एक एक panel होता है उसके अंदर से हर चीज़ का आपको light and shite में चलती नज़र आ रही होंगी but everything is being managed and controlled by an industrial computer यूं में We can call it logical controller, we can call it a lot of things but humor हां हां brain. So हम जो start हुए थे वह यह हुए थे कि हम कहते थे कि जो existing आपकी machine है इसको अगर आपने upgrade करना है तो we can do that electronic component part. We will use all the world renowned logical controllers but उसके अंदर जो सारी programming करनी है हम करके आपकी चीज़ों को upgrade कर देंगे. That was our start. फिर यह होता as you grow. तो इसी की आगे field होती है कि अगर आप किसी और industry में जाएं तो पूरी की पूरी industry एक central control room से चल रही होती है. So then we evolved into that expertise. So we could, so then if somebody was setting up a new industry, so we would say कि आप बेशक सब चीज़ें बाहर से मंगाएं. लेकिन यह जो component है इसको carve out करके because this is the biggest pain. इसकी support मुश्किल होगी इसकी. So आप कोई भी industry लगा रहे हैं इसका जो control system है पूरे का पूरा let us do that. So that also means कि आपकी basically जो factory है या जो आपकी

जो conveyor belt है basically उसकी design भी पूरी की पूरी आप control Right हुए conveyor हां but lot of ways आप automate कर रहे हैं उसको आप define कर दिया. वह वह हम उनसे

discuss करते हैं और वह अगर कोई supply कर रहा है तो उससे information आ जाती है तो say conveyor belt start करनी है, stop करनी है, that's our job. Right. वह आगे fill हो गया तो conveyor तो this is all the sensors saying that ok the the bin after the conveyor belt is full, stop it. So this is all automated in our process. Interesting

और वह मतलब machine खुद देख रही है कि यहां पर अब load ज़्यादा हो गया तो अब इसको Exactly. Interesting and so the goal here is कि आप human resource को minimize कर रहे हैं automation के through या आप process optimize कर रहे हैं और failure rate को reduce या कर रहे

quality increase कर देखिए अमूमन इसको लिया इस तरह जाता है कि human resource कम हो जाएगा और labor कम हो जाएगी और वह देखिए वह elevate भी हो जाते हैं बहुत दफा उनके skill level बढ़ जाता है वह और चीज़ें but it is the repeatability of the process quality

and

productivity and efficiencies. These are these are extremely important parameters

again यह वह जो है ना वह आप वही बात करें जो dogmas चलते रहते हैं. अच्छा मैं इसमें personal experience बताता हूं. So मैं आपको एक industry का experience बताता हूं. So my my wife decided to do a business of planners. नहीं होते notebook planners होते हैं. अच्छा मेरा I was hard stuck on Pakistan. उस time के बाद particularly dollar अच्छी price पर था. मार से माल धड़ा धड़ा आ रहा था और जो भी अगर इस किस्म के business में आ रहा था वह China जाता था. रहा है. Third, fourth में जाकर ऐसा हुआ कि अगर हमारे पास let's say पांच हज़ार piece आ रहे हैं तो उसमें से one fifth of the entire माल वह ऐसा नहीं था कि आप बेच सकते हैं. Fully agreed. Right? So so that's where my experience was कि Pakistan में unfortunately industry industrial level के ऊपर उनकी side से हमें यह feedback यही मिलता था sir वह इंसान होते हैं वह लड़का उसको बैठ के glue

लगा रहा होता है. देखिए I will not discount that लेकिन जिन organizations ने इस पर focus किया है they have been able to do that and may I take name of one of our customers and, you know, I don't know, I've not taken permission, but I think they're such good customers that they would not. Right. Go to there, ever get a chance. They have improved, I mean we have worked with them and each and every operator knows the efficiencies, knows कि यह मेरा down मतलब it is unbelievable how they have worked with the same operators using working with our team to elevate it to the level मतलब उनका यह खुद idea था कि हम देख के क्या करेंगे? We should invest in screens that these guys should look at. अब now these are operators who operate a tea making machine as per my understanding. Right. But I have been around the world and I found very few who have that level to the shop floor that they have achieved.

So देखिए जब आपको फिर वह नज़र भी आता है ना फिर then टपाल is something जो कि मैं Pakistan से जब भी आता हूं तो मेरे suit के साथ साथ जो टपाल से भरा हुआ था तो फिर. तो देखिए and

there are several other customers like that. Right. So they are our वह हमारे octopus के customer. These are सब देखिए quality अगर कोई समझता ही नहीं important तो वह वह अगर planner बना रहा है तो वह उसमें भी वही मसला करेगा दूसरा लेकिन survival

impossible है. आजकल दुनिया में if you Don't focus on the quality. सवाल ही नहीं. Interesting. So nineteen ninety four में आपने start किया वेंसी होना essentially? हां यह कोई round 94 में start हुआ था. Interesting और if I were to ask you कि 94 से लेकर मुझे twenty twenty four में oh by the way twenty years congratulations. हां नहीं यह तो years. Thirty years yes. आप लोगों की इस साल thirtieth anniversary भी आने वाली जी बिल्कुल बिल्कुल है. Give me a summary of what's happened since then. I mean you started in Pakistan, you started working with a few industries. What's happened in the last thirty years?

Like with Avancyan? फिर Avancyan, yes. देखिए, अवांसीन तो एक beautiful mom and pop जिसे कहते हैं boutique organization थी, we were doing well. Then we starting having these ideas that we have to grow. तो we would like, at that time, bought a 30 engineer company, 2530, and then we went out looking for equity. That was the first time that we said that, okay, we have to invest some money outside capital otherwise we had just operated with organic capital. तो we went around and 2,002 में Angro invested in our company and then the total investment was I think less than a million dollars. So वह उस जमाने के आप लगा लें dollar rate से तो और वह वह rupees में तो काफी कम हो जाता है. लगभग छह करोड़ रुपए बनते हैं. हां तो something like that, something like that. So वह we we build so so our plan with that was कि हम एक state of art facility Pakistan में बनाएंगे which nobody has जहां engineers अच्छी तरह काम कर सकेंगे यह वह and then we'll start trial international marketing in Middle East. Right. तो हमने एक यहां छोटा office लिया था with जहां तीन लोग बैठ सकते थे and we built an office in Pakistan as a back office. So that was a first but in 2008 what I think February 2010 Angro decided to divest in all the non core businesses. So we bought back our shares and we went public I think and उस वक्त तक हम grow कर रहे थे ऐसा ऐसा and we realized कि this business plan that we had envisaged can actually happen to scale it. तो we went public, we raised some further capital and then we expanded in The Middle East. So over the years now we are about 500 engineers. We operate in Pakistan, Dubai, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, aim for Avansian. We established a new subsidiary called Octopus. I'll come to that. हां, मैं यह तो यह journey तो Avansian की है ना, so collectively bought 600. So Avansian has a जब यह पहली investment हुई थी तो I think we had a revenue of I think $2,000,000. पचास रुपए का था ना? हां तो कोई हां तो 100,000,000 का हमारा revenue था 80 to 100,000,000. तो यह चालीस मुझे इस तरह याद है दो million dollar. So we looking at next year achieving $100,000,000 in order generation. That is the the plan which we call Road 200. So this has been the journey of avancience in summary. Question मेरा इसमें है यह.

You are an engineer. You didn't do an MBA in the process. IT industry के बड़े लोगों से मेरी बात होती है. वह कहते हैं कि यार Pakistan में जो है ना वह मसला ही है कि बड़ी company सोए से नहीं बनती because हमारे यहां businessman जो है वह नहीं घुसा. आप as an engineer you dabbled in areas एक तो आपने institutionalize किया Vansion को आपने जाकर उसमें investment raise की. बड़ा वह again पिछले दिनों मेरी एक IT company से बात हो रही थी. वह जब भी IT वालों से बात हुई ना वह कहते हैं यार हमें क्यों चाहिए investment? हमें सोचना ही नहीं investment के बारे में. वह अपनी वह एक सौ बंदे की पचास बंदे की shop से बड़े खुश रहते हैं. You know they don't want to. That's a great business plan by the way I mean देखिए मैं यह भी कहता हूं

and you know you start questioning your own business plan when you expand because expansion has its own pains. You have to understand that because what you've achieved already you say ok I will again put that on risk and go for that and then that is a natural cycle of a business. Some people want to go to that cycle, some people don't and if somebody says किया ma'am I have free cash flow, मेरा एक अच्छा business चल रहा है. I have a horizon of ten fifteen years why should I go

to? No I mean nothing against them. My question is how was it for you who did not have the core business experience और education? थे तो आप engineer है ना? You were learning on the job कि अच्छा चलो यार इतना scale कर लिया. अच्छा चलो investment raise कर लेते हैं. That's the first time you're going to raise investment. कैसा होगा? क्या होगा? कोई board पर आकर बैठेगा? Decision making अब मैं थोड़ी सी let go कर दूंगा. फिर उसके बाद IPO पर जाना which basically means कि you know there is lot more scrutiny now coming in from outside. You have to be a lot more structured. Start में तो बंदा I am sure पहले तीन चार साल आपने बस काम किया होगा problem solve की होगी. कौन ledgers maintain करें? कौन paperwork करें? Get the job done वाला बंदा उससे start करता है. ऐसा ऐसा now you have to institutionalize, you have to structure it. How was that नहीं

कोशिश तो शुरू से थी कि कुछ documentation. So I would say कि अगर हम दस लोगों की company भी थी तो दूसरे दस लोगों की company से थोड़ा ज़्यादा document. Mean just because procedures हम लिखते थे and देते हैं I look at a lot of my old documents and I say अच्छा यह बना अब लगता है कि यह क्या फ़जूर document था लेकिन at least I I look back and say कि बनाते तो थे ना? So you had that DNA from the very start. थोड़ा लेकिन I think that again is kind of elementary if you have to do business. देखिए. What do mean by that? आपने किया है कि जी and I was listening and बड़ा अच्छा सवाल था कि जी देखिए अगर अपने आप को अब यह यह जो है ना कि मैं business शुरू करूंगा मेरे ऊपर time नहीं अगर आप reinvent नहीं कर रहे आप नहीं कोई चीज़ें सीख रहे You will fade away. यह यह कि अब मेरा business हो गया है, मेरे पास पैसे आने शुरू हो गए हैं. यह एक strange किस्म की thinking है जो I think and you would know better after you you interviewed. Those businesses will fade away, those thought leaders will fade away and you would not hear about them after a while. तो यह तो कौन सा यह कोई मेरी कोई amazing चीज़ नहीं थी. I it is an imperative. I learned accounting. I learned, I उसे खुदा करदाब भी शायद है Pakistan Institute of Management. I did many courses there. एक एक हफ्ते का accounting for non accounting, detailed accounting सारा करते थे और देखिए जब तक आप वह नहीं सीखेंगे financial है ना यह तो अब बड़ा एक common चीज़ है कि वह कहेंगे अच्छा आपको future cash flow आता है वह क्यों नहीं आएगा? I mean this is मेरे लिए बड़ी एक surprising चीज़ होती है जब कोई पूछता है. क्या चाहे आप net present value why वह how भाई क्यों नहीं calculate करनी आएगी engineer को? मतलब यह कोई और अगर आप engineer मैं programming कर रहा हूं तो शायद मुझे नहीं ज़रूरत जब मुझे एक responsibility मिल गई. चाहे मैंने खुद अपने आप को है तो I have to learn that. कोई इसमें तो whenever the first time I went in front of the investors मुझे याद है जो मैं raise कर रहा था. I ordered three books from Amazon. इतनी इतनी बड़ी. Future cash flow, किस तरह modeling करनी है, Excel पर कैसे? So I knew all the terms. I and then I realized I still don't know as much के so then I talked to some of my banker friend उन्होंने कहा कि एक और so I still I know him very well, so he became I would say a consultant tutor, he is one of the earliest lums graduate and he for a consultancy train and we made a model. Future cash flows किस तरह, क्या net present value, क्या valuation का, enterprise value यह और and then I learned and I so अगर आपको नहीं आता कई लोग कहते रहे हैं मैं so you have to go out and look for it. अभी तक यही होता है. How is it? I mean I I I think I have to learn new things every day. तो यह इसलिए यह तो कोई और देखिए अगर आप engineering समझ लेते हैं ना तो यह बाकी चीज़ें समझना कोई इतना मुश्किल काम नहीं है. Makes sense. अब इसी के साथ अगर मैं आपसे कहूं कि when you went for an IPO in 2,010,

right? What was the thought process there and did it not scare you कि यार अब जो extra bucket loads of paper work मुझे करना पड़ेगा? You know public company होने की वजह से या because of the investment.

वह हम काफ़ी कर चुके हुए थे. बहुत कुछ कर चुके हुए थे और हमारी audit बिल्कुल उसी level की होती थी. काफ़ी कुछ कर चुके थे लेकिन चूंकि हमने उसको एक scale पर लेकर जाना था तो वह एक business decision था और उसके अंदर एक बहुत critical component IPO का था because we had committed stock options to our team and HR is a very important component in our business and we can't take it away. That is probably the most critical component. Mean that's your product. That's our product. That's our raw material. Right. तो वह अगर हम बहुत delay करते तो excitement

खत्म हो जाता है. देखिए अब आपने यह जो कमाल का आपने ना एक point raise किया जो कि मैं IT वालों से Pakistan में IT का आजकल बड़ा चर्चा है और वह मुझे बार बार आकर कहते हैं कि यार retention का problem है. Right? वह कहते यार बंदा retain नहीं होता, बंदा retain नहीं होता. तो मेरा सवाल आता मैं कहता हूं यार दुनिया में भी तो यह problem है ना यह Pakistan का problem तो नहीं है. Free market है, people will move. तो आप कोई incentive structure built in करेंगे कि यार if you are loyal तो आप तीन साल रहोगे या सात साल रहोगे तो इतने भी best होगा आपका x y z. So when I ask them about IPO's for example तो they say कि भाई हमें तो पैसे नहीं चाहिए. मैं कहता हूं it's not just the money that you you getting it's also the fact that you know there is an exit that your people might get or you might get if if you at any point in time require that. थोड़ा सा मुझे इसके बारे में बताएं कि how important has stock options been for your for your employees because I know for a fact a lot of IT small and medium IT companies would be listening in and Pakistan में मैंने literally I have heard an IT company say कि यार हम यह कर लेंगे कि हम ना अपने staff को commit कर देंगे कि हम तुम्हें apartment बनाकर दे देंगे सात साल बाद. वह again real estate के अंदर फिर से घुस जाएंगे but institutionalize on a stock level they they they not. देखिए

you can talk to RHA head and some people who have there. I think it makes a huge difference. मेरा ख्याल था time जब हमारी होती है attrition कभी कभी ऐसे आते हैं तो I would thinking maybe it's not working but the leadership that we've built in the organization. तो वह जो tier है that was not possible and and which is a very very big component आपने आपने यह भी सवाल भी पुछा था कि देखें you have to give responsibility. So जब तक आप able, confident and responsible leadership team अपने नीचे नहीं build करते तो बहुत सी चीज़ें नहीं हो सकती. उसके लिए जो leadership है और middle tier के लिए बहुत important है. उसके लिए बहुत ज़्यादा role play किया है. If you say entry level पर five years experience I think as much as I think कि they should value it. They don't. But it's

like they are different. नहीं entry level I wouldn't even look at entry level right because they have very different incentive structures right now they looking at कि यार मुझे कहां पर work environment बेहतर मिल रहा है कहां पर मेरी मर्ज़ी काम हो रहा है. It's the leadership you are right because the leadership has to work with a lot of ownership which आप यह नहीं expect कर सकते कि यार तुम मुझे ownership दो लेकिन मैं तुम्हें कुछ return नहीं है. And देखिए यह

थोड़ा सा because maybe देखिए I don't want to doubt those people who are not doing stock up because they may be giving other options to their leadership and could be very successful. हमारे पास वह थी नहीं. We we thought this was a better way to reward long term मतलब जिसने service. So so this was our idea and and this idea is not unique that is done all over the world. तो you you the other thing that you have to do when you're in business benchmark yourself. See how top companies like you, yours do the same thing outside your country and in in a competitive world and and we realize that they do it like that. अब वह दूसरा जो आपका सवाल था कि वह क्यों नहीं करते? I don't know. I think it's the fear of the unknown.

I think ज़्यादा the reason why I find you and systems very interesting is because you're essentially new age companies perception wise and you're able to you were able to do the IPO's and all of that तो you're leading that charge. But इसी के साथ मेरा दूसरा connected सवाल आता है कि a major problem that I find in Pakistan particularly is हमें पता है numbers आते हैं कि हमारा savings rate बहुत बुरा है, हमारी investment rate बहुत बुरा है as a country और हम जब देखते हैं कि यार बख्तेहार साहब एक बड़ा अच्छा काम कर रहे हैं तो हम यह नहीं सोचते कि यार जो economies are built on trust. Trust is the core component of what makes a successful economy. Trust होता है तो आप you know collaborate करते हैं. Trust होता है तो आप जो है वह consolidate करके आप you know scale के ऊपर जाते हैं. Trust होता है तो आप mergers and acquisitions भी देखते हैं. यहां पर हम देखते हैं कि बहुत ज़्यादा डेढ़ unit की मस्जियत हरबंदे ने बनानी है. Nobody wants to let go of their own equity and again lack of trust है तो people are don't do a lot of these things. If I were to ask you based on your experience over the last thirty years doing business in Pakistan, has raising capital been difficult? Has have you ever thought about कि यार एक और company है, मैं उसको acquire कर लेता हूं, मैं अपना scale बढ़ा देता हूं. Have you had these conversations? Have there been failures and challenges there? I think शुरू में तो जब हम

we had started तो यह equity raise करना Pakistan में यह ऐसी बातें तो थी नहीं. हम ही करते थे लेकिन it was very difficult to to to raise equity for small tech company का तो आप समझें के chance ही नहीं था उस वक्त. तो but I think the landscape has changed now. If somebody has a compelling and this has changed over the last ten fifteen years and we I can't complain. Whenever we had a compelling value and we raised किया है, हमने खैर दो दो तीन दफा तो किया है. एक तो वह we have managed. Yes, it takes time. You need to be very structured. जहां businesses lack करते हैं कि वह सोच लिया capital raise करना है but they are not willing to invest even in a good structured presentation and information map. देखिए यह यह सारी चीज़ें बड़ी critical होती हैं. Number one. अब इन्दी तीन्दा farm ने raise किया है. दूसरी merger and acquisition we we we acquired a company through share swap of दाल. We were looking at developing a lot of machine learning and AI stuff. They had done it for five, six years. They may not have had that kind of commercial success, but we had a conversation and we are willing to give them that value of what they have without commercial success. तो और बहुत amicably हम छह आठ दस दफा मिले discussions की, किस तरह बनेंगे, क्या उसको करेंगे? तो we have taken that product and merged into octopus. Interesting. Through a and and we bought the company and just offered shares to the sponsors there which is दाउद group. So. Is there is

this public के इसका जो नाम है company का? हां हां. क्या नाम है? वह तो हमें connect करते हो empiric

AI. Interesting. So they were launched in the market? No no they were they were a private company. वह अभी काम कर रहे थे. 35, 40 people. ठीक है. They were doing international project. Their major project was with GE

and they were doing so. Was this one of the एक announcement आई थी अंग्रोह वालों की कि जी वह GE के साथ मिलकर कोई machine learning वगैरह के ऊपर काम कर रहे वह. Company. The same company. Oh phenomenal so that same company is now. Part of octopus.

Fascinating. So देखिए आप ज़्यादा बता चुप करके आदमी ऐसा काम देखिए. Fascinating. अच्छा. अगर आप देखेंगे from their side also they were top professionals who would who would deal so एक उनके वह board के थे. He is an ex Boston का BCG के आरव जांजुआ the CEO of दाउद वो भी अपना तो so देवी had open candid discussions कि किस तरह है और हमने यह नहीं कहा कि भाई इसका तो revenue कम है या यह loss रहा है या हमने तो यह देखा कि यह future में हमें क्या और बड़ी amicably हमने.

Again there was a trust there right? So that's why I saying that trust element is very very important. But they trusted you to do the right thing and you trusted them to do the right We trusted them immensely and they also

जिस तरह के उसी तरह उन्होंने and I'm thankful of them. Really trusted us and then we took care of their was the team joined us and we are now बल्कि हमने तो successes भी वह ले लिए कि दोनों products को mix करके we have Tell me taken Octavas. What's the product? What are you doing and commercially

where does it stand today? Interesting.

Have you, do you have any background of fog toying? I do not. लेकिन यह जब वंशियन में हम एक काम करते थे कि जब यह मैंने आपको दो तीन evolution के steps बताएं. एक यह कि वही plant को छोटी machines को control कर देना. फिर पूरे plant को control करना और उसको एक central control room से करना. फिर the third stage is when you go up the pyramid and you take all the data that is coming from the plant. So there could be 100 points which are monitoring temperature, thousand points which are saying machine on, so you take those data points and start logging them, which which traditionally and to date people use proprietary and very conventional software to do that. And that's an investment that a company has to make. So so the largest companies doing that software is Aviva, Schneider, Rockwell. So we used to use that when we moved up the value chain, so we would use those software tools to develop a complete information management system

for the customer. And my understanding is a conventional players and that's like millions of dollars के licenses for From

$100,000 to a million dollar and whatever, but our engineering used to be on top of it. Right. And then that for on the side that slowly and gradually became our biggest value proposition because we used to differentiate ourselves from other automation companies with this skill. Right. कि उनकी सिर्फ़ automation skill है लेकिन कल को आपने यह करना है तो जिसमें equipment efficiencies, writing formulas, process. So बहुत in depth चीज़ें हमने उसमें की. While we using using all these software we we started dabbling with cloud. तो हम कुछ data cloud पर ले जाते थे and then we opened up the databases. We said कि look why the conventional systems in and proprietary databases in the IT side are more or less eliminated. अब अगर आप देखें तो कोई database नहीं खरीदता बल्कि वह अब आप जब से SAP लेते हैं तो you don't even know. Yeah. What database are they using Oracle? Are they using this? अब यह बात नहीं होती. तो taking the cue from that we said कि यह industry में भी यह revolution आएगा. So we started working with Microsoft and we started doing POCs कि इसको eliminate करके can we only do it in the cloud.

So the POCs took about year and a half and then. And at this point in time you weren't doing generating insights on top of it. You were just saying कि listen just start moving the data on the cloud? No, insights

yes. We were doing dashboards and all that. Our goal was so the disruption that we want to create in that eventually is. जो हमारा company कहता कि नहीं आपके पास यह सारे software भी होने चाहिए और फिर आप cloud पर ज़रा data हम यह कह रहे थे कि नहीं just go all cloud. Just do full Monty forget everything कि यह सब कुछ cloud पर अब वह capabilities है through IoT technology and why is it possible? Due to IoT technology. पहले नहीं हो सकता था यह. Right. पहले आपको वही software host करने पड़ते थे और यह काम cloud पर करना पड़ा. But वह आपको the thing that आप जब तक वह proprietary databases नहीं लेते थे तब तक आप cloud. So this new concept था तो बड़ा अच्छा concept लेकिन इस पर तो एक दो साल तो हमने इस पर काम किया कि यह हो भी सकता है कि नहीं. Right. Then we said यह हो तो सकता है. But it again is a big problem because people need cloud engineering knowledge. And that's a different domain altogether. That's a different domain altogether. So so so Evansian can do it, we can do it. But if we have to scale it, we have to make a product, which makes it easier. So then in the next three years, we started making a product. So now to collect data and take it to the cloud and make it complete in big data format, a person with three hours training on our software can do it in two hours. Interesting. So that germinated. So हमने एक product बनाया OmniConnect. So OmniConnect data enable कर देता है which we call OT data. IT is IT data which is transactional data and OT data is streaming data. Right. So an example would be कि अगर temperature का data आ रहा है तो that is coming every two seconds. We are logging it. So it's humongous. तो 1,000 data points है तो imagine कि इसको आप multiply, you are also an engineer I think. तो करेंगे तो वह इतनी वह immediately big data वन जाता है even a 100. So we use IoT to do that and then we उसके अंदर हमारे पास पूरा interface है कि किस तरह उसको contextualize आपने करना है. You don't, it's a complete no code interface. So you say temperature multiply, divide, up. So इसकी जो business analytics हो रही है वह सारी and then we connect it to any business analytic tool which in our cases power भी आए. So whichever, so we have जिसे कहते ना एक love democratized so if

we go we say कि why are you doing it like that just do it through an open. So business को real time पर at any given time वह सारी सारी reporting हो रही है अलग अलग. Without. एक बंदा बैठा है वह निकाल के यार report निकाल के दो पिछले हफ्ते की और वह सारा कुछ करो but इसी के साथ if I were to understand you mentioned you know machine learning and and AI. My understanding is you know there is a conventional standardized like insight that you understand कि यार यह data है इसी के insight generate करनी है करनी है but with this amount of data now is is a lot of fun part as well where you can potentially look at कि यार ठीक है अगर मैंने a plus b is equal to उसी कर लिया लेकिन मैं चार चीज़ें और मिलाकर मैं क्या x y z कोई Absolutely. Inside generate कर सकता Are you doing that as well? So

यह जो empiric AI थी, they had done same kind of experimentation on the ML and AI level. Right. The only thing that they had done was that they had used conventional databases to do that. And they were housing the data in GE platform and then doing AI and ML stuff. So our idea was that now that we have addressed the data part, that we don't need that. Right. So if we cut that off and make a bridge and learn from that, modify those what they have developed in a way that they are full cloud native and work with our datasets so that would be a compelling that's what you're saying. So फिर हमने जब यह acquisition की तो the last eight, nine months have been spent in doing that. So now we are coming out, so एक product था OmniConnect, which we now are making it international and we'll be selling through channels that anybody can use that tool to do like what Evansean is doing, anybody else can use the tool and there is a whole method to that that how the channel would work and all. उसके ऊपर we are making these tools of machine learning. They are asset based. So we've picked up 20 say assets of the industry, say a pump which cuts across every industry. So those asset tools have been made and they would be working so people would have data. Once they have six to nine months of data, they can

just select that tool and start having that machine learning algorithm also running. Interesting. If I were to ask you, because you've gone through this cycle of, octopus. Right? Would you say that the value or rather what has more value? The AIML component or the data component?

देखिए, I would say the

I mean एक जमाने में वह आया था कि यार data is the new oil

right? अब आजकल AIML के beach बात यह है कि in my opinion देखिए जो जो हमारे business के modeling है AI machine learning की, वह तो अगर आपके पास छह महीने का data ना हो it can't work. That's the that's the issue in our business. छह महीने का minimum चाहिए because machines cut and then a big job is to cleaning the data. देखिए transactional data में आप physically कितना data की ग़लती का कर देंगे और ग़लती भी है वह पकड़ी जाती है वह. In our business we are streaming data on a real time basis. वह अगर कोई sensor ख़राब है तो वह ख़राब ही data होगा. ठीक है? तो machine learning cannot so so this these are the inherent issues in our business which had to be automated. So so in my opinion, whether it is a viable business option that I'm saying or not, but in my opinion, the critical component is good data in big data format of OT. That is the first thing. Without that nothing. So so we've we've written a lot of tools. So वह जो मैं no code की बात तो उसमें बहुत ज़्यादा हमारी team ने इतनी effort करी तो we build a great data lake of OT data which can connect through any tool, any tool. Tools तो हम अलग बना रहे मुझे but it can connect but having said that यह तो मेरा view है ना? The selling pitch

nowadays is So step in वह

बात बड़ी interesting है कि वह Because business में आप उसे कहेंगे कि यार but you're not you don't even have data in the right format. Yeah. So, वह कहेंगे अच्छा step तो वह they but I tell you what happens is जब वह insights और actionable information ही देखना शुरू कर देते हैं. देखिए एक machine की efficiency, एक process efficiencies है. वही अगर आप real time monitor कर रहे हैं तो और predict कर रहे हैं तो वह बहुत बड़ी. उसके बाद यह सब कुछ तो but our value इसीलिए हमने उसमें machine learning के tools बनाए and they are running on open tools. So we just use Python to do that. Makes sense. How is the feedback?

आपने कहा में इसको international लेकर जा रहे हैं. You know you probably have spoken to partners here out here in the Middle East.

देखिए the यह तो feedback बहुत ही अच्छी है. I mean I I don't want to say that I jump the gun. Right. But लेकिन इसमें एक चीज़ बहुत important है कि we had the पाकिस्तानी market. So you had a good base? If we didn't have that, this business plan would have sunk already $30,000,000. I I I I am just being honest and then we might have been out of business. A, we have some exceptional clients in Pakistan

who There are clients in Pakistan, sorry मैं आपकी बात कर रहा हूं. There are clients in Pakistan who are participants of Octopus,

you know generating that data, doing AI and Of course and they are using those dashboards from the cloud. तोपाल is one of them.

The whole product. I mean they are progressive enough to be you know क्योंकि this is gold standard right now. This is something that's happening all over the world. मैं आपको बताऊं कुछ customers ने Pakistan की जो

किया हुआ है. I was on a trip just to understand and I met a lot of channel partners अभी Europe में just two and the objective of the trip was not to sell right away कि I walk out with a sail. It was just to take very candid feedback. And I know a few companies through our business in Evansian, so I had taken a lot of appointments in it. When I showed up some of our work in Pakistan, यह challenge नहीं था कि यह बड़ा कमाल है. Challenge यह था कि यह वाकई है कि you are, I am not joking. And then I could see doubts in their highs and they say कि really? Although they know me and all that but I said yes. So one or two of our customers allow us, so I said this is running. So we think we have an edge over others in addressing this problem that I had highlighted earlier कि हम वह industry की problem को address कर रहे हैं. There are others who would be on the same bandwagon and I think our challenge right now is to scale it up and have more and more installed base outside Pakistan. Makes sense.

Connected to this, what's the aspect of data security in all of this? This question is इसमें दो tiers है. पहला यह है कि data security because obviously it's proprietary data of the customers तो उनका data चाहे वह basic sensor का temperature ही हो, data is data, right? So how have you approached data security? And the second question is that इस model maybe confusion है इस time के ऊपर where is the data going into a central repository being trained en masse across the industry and then that trained algorithm is being sold to every anyone else or are you saying कि listen आपका data, आपकी hosting, आपका algorithm आप पर trained और वहां पर ही use हो रहा है and we can't cross sell it to someone else. Not the data but the but the you know trained algorithm for example. And then second third question इसके साथ आता है कि जो data itself है वह भी एक commodity वन जाती है in today's day and age. Right and so how do you see that? Will these companies potentially sell it to an intermediary and they can sell it to someone else? Or would they be not interested and then, you know, potentially a third party player can come and take that data and be able to sell that as well? इसका जो जवाब है ना, मैं तीनों को दूंगा और बड़ा interesting है. मैं इस clip को फिर काटकर ना अपनी marketing और sales की pitch में डाल दूंगा because this is a very,

देखिए. So we पहला सवाल कि जो data security generally. So I'm not a cloud expert but I learned on the way and I I I so I was working in terms of blocks that what the public wants, how would we address this issue, so security was a very big issue. So we took the root of making our product cloud native. Now let me explain what cloud native is. We, whatever we've developed, which is a very extensive code and it's a brilliant thing that our team has done over the last three four years is not hosted on any machine. Okay. It runs on Microsoft services. So जिस तरह आप कोई भी Microsoft का product run करते हैं वह उनकी application services पर run करता है. उसी तरह हमने अगर हम उनका database use कर रहे हैं तो as a service use कर रहे हैं. हमने जो app बनाई है उनकी app services पर हमने host कर दी है. So we are native to Microsoft security. अगर हम अपना server और अपना सब कुछ host करते हैं which is also an option. So you can either go infrastructure as a service or you go for Microsoft service as a service. So we opted. अच्छा यह जो काम होता है जब native बनाते हैं तो ज़्यादा मुश्किल होता है. इसलिए मुश्किल होता है कि you आप सोलह services use कर रहे हैं जो different है और उसके सारे आप उसको develop इस तरह कर रहे हैं. Then to to to port it to any other is also difficult because आपने तो native Microsoft पर develop कर लिया. But बहुत सोच कि हमने कहा कि अगर हम अपना बनाएंगे तो यह इतने सवाल आऐंगे क्योंकि अगर हम अपना server host करते तो पूरी security वगैरह. So now that when we go to customers all over the world and say कि it's native. So even if you have a Microsoft account, if you are a corporate Microsoft customer, you can use we will link your directory, active directory. मैं बहुत technical हो रहा हूं लेकिन यह मैं आपको with our You basically saying कि जो आपकी database की security है वह Microsoft के ज़िद्द है because they are the ones hosting उसको इसको थोड़ा सा उसको. What about the encryption of the data? वह तो सारी वही तो हम जब हम उनकी services करते हैं we are using Microsoft. हमने पहले बनाई थी अपनी. We from even जो edge जो हम factory से data ऊपर जाता है that's Azure we use native Azure to encrypt goes into IoT hub, the decrypts and go directly to the data lake. So we we have used so, वह everybody feels very confident in the world. So यह movement पूछते हैं कि is it truly native? तो यार इसका so then we have to show them architecture which we should not because it is our whole internal thing but at a higher level we show them. No leakages.

There's no कहीं ना कहीं apps देखें switch

अगर आप अपना password किसी को दे देंगे तो वह तो leakage हो जाएगी ना लेकिन वह उसके अंदर जा उस password के through जाकर if he has to go in and hack and change the code then he has to go through Microsoft security. है ना? ठीक है. Number one, अब रह गया individual का data. So our software is multi tenanted. That's also a feature which all these services provide. जब आप अपना जैसे ही हमारे software के अंदर अपना बनाते हैं login code और यह तो वह एक पूरी tunnel isolated through Microsoft बनती है and within data lake you are a tenant which is totally isolated with anybody else and that was also an extra cost but we did it. So that basically means कि मतलब what what does that mean कि basically आपकी जो आपको rights मिले हुए हैं आप सिर्फ उसको देख रहे हैं आप. उसी को देख रहे हैं आप. जा ही नहीं सकते ना वह तो tunnel क्योंकि आपको है ही multi tenanted approach से हमने design किया हुआ है and because it's cloud native so you it's like your emails nobody else can see. Right. Unless he has a password of your. तो user access आपने basically define किया है उसका? नहीं user और उसके अंदर वह भी एक किस्म की brick wall है ना क्योंकि वह design ही ऐसा है. ठीक है. कि when you do multi tenanted approach तो वह data बिल्कुल एक एक किस्म का core उस wall के अंदर और उस tunnel के अंदर ही रहता है. That's a that's a that's a I'm trying to explain it simply but multi tenanted is considered कि हो गया यह भी gold standard हो. Third आपने कहा कि जो The business model of data. Business की जी data. अब उसके अंदर कुछ जो models हमारे हैं वह तो हम owner करते हैं. हमारी intellectual property है. हम कहते कि इसकी application है आप इसको use कर लें and our model is getting perfected and they are using it on our subscription. But we also allow the individual to make their own models. Right. They can use Microsoft's tool and other any Python tool through our API do it, host it and do that. That when they do, they will save those formulas and all that in their tenant, it's not available. We give this option कि क्या आप इसको public के लिए available करना चाहते हैं? हां.

या नहीं करना चाहते? यह उनकी choice है. क्योंकि I mean the way that I see it ten years down the line we're looking at a market place. चौथा point आपका.

Now is the marketplace of data, right? देखिए जितना मैंने उसे study किया है you cannot sell data of any we can't. We can't make a business out of it कि देखें but yes, you can build a service in which you can say and we will do it after कि suppose there are 10 t manufacturing plants. They're using the same kind of, so without giving names, so we can make a do you want to benchmark? Which is an HR. You benchmark your salaries against others, and they don't tell you the name. They say que you are in the top 95%. So एक process है जिसकी efficiency तो you can talk to your customers and say look, right? 20 people have agreed to without taking names to benchmark their data? Do you want to be part of that group which helps the industry? Yeah. That's all and then publish the data. तो वह ज़रूर इरादा है कि eventually क्योंकि देखिए industries को ज़्यादा से ज़्यादा use करेगी, उसमें efficiencies लाएगी तो that data has to spread even if we have to convince people we'll have to convince them कि देखिए इसमें कोई data security breach नहीं हो रही. You will get to know about the others without any names and that is what we have in mind. Roadmap eventually.

मुझे यह बताएं कि you guys are very active in the Middle East. When you look, when you talk to services companies in Pakistan तो वह उनका यह होता है कि यार पहले America. फिर अगर America में हम saturate हो गए तो हम थोड़ा सा Europe वो देख लेंगे. फिर हम Middle East में आऐंगे. Middle East में margins कम हैं. Payment cycles जो हैं उनके मसले हैं, professionalism के मसले हैं. What's your opinion on US versus Europe versus Middle East market and how has your experience been in the Middle East market? देखिए

क्या होता है horses for courses. हमने US में start किया था Avancian but we feel for the Avancian work Middle East offered much more attractive options at that time because यहां economy grow हो रही थी, infrastructure grow हो रहा था, capital expenditure यहां हो रहा था. So that was a good strategy that we focused and pulled back from on the octopus thing. We're not even thinking Middle East right now. So anything that we raise right now would only be for The US and very selected Western because that is totally a different business. And in we are just looking at

US. So The US do you think is a much better product based business? For octopus yes. For product. Why do you think why do you so एक तो logical evolution है ना कि में यह हो रहा था तो हमने सोचा यार vertically integrate करें और उस component को ले लें. Pakistan में आजकल बड़ी आवाज़ आ रही है वह लोग कह रहे हैं कि आज the future of the world is product based business है services को आप arbitrage पर कितना ही बेच लेंगे कब तक बेच लेंगे. पहला तो मुझे बताइएगा कि what was the thought behind going towards a product based business? And दूसरा do you think कि is is it realistic to start dreaming about creating products out of Pakistan and then selling and selling them into The US market? यह देखिए dream तो यह बिल्कुल नहीं है. यह तो यह तो जो

मैं आमिर की आंख को बता रहा हूं और अब I mean you look at what I to see are the he's done and out of Bay Area competing with the best of the best and and and creating a full service solution for top financial institutions. Yeah. And and and competing with even the financial institutions, IT companies के देखें आप इतना अच्छा नहीं करते, हम करके देते हैं आपको. It's a full hosted application and then without an application that service cannot exist. Again, अगर compelling but it's a you have to persevere and whatever you're thinking of a product should actually be a product. There are no half measures there. So, I mean, I'll give you an example of ours. So so our, say, business plan of Octopus was is to sell through channels. So overarching spec उसकी है कि चार घंटे की training के बाद somebody should be able to do a project. If you can't do it, it's not a product. So I think first point, हमारी तो thought process यह था कि yes, our idea is very good. It is a top quality idea that embrace the big data. I mean, in an overall technical concept, everybody agrees with it. And then you talk to thought leaders of the best of the best in the world. They'll say, हां, eventually तो यही है. But how to do it? So we harness that. We we learned that technology. We implemented products, projects. But then we realized we can be even if we are very successful in taking our customers to the cloud, what am I saying? More business, more people. So my business of services cannot be as scalable as product. And then all the issues about how to retain cloud engineering, learning new technologies. So you cannot have 5,000 people learning those technologies and implementing that. तो इसलिए हमने तो और सारी वह reason जो कोई भी product बनाने के लिए जाता है. तो हमने तो इसलिए किया कि we want to be scalable. Octopus should focus on a world class tool that enables people to take OT data to big data format in the cloud and that's our mission and we'll do that. तो इसलिए हमने यह किया. Makes sense. थोड़ा सा मैं Pakistan की तरफ आऊं. Recently

economics थोड़ी सी up and down हुई है. पहला तो यह है कि are you worried? Both in the context of the turbulence that Pakistan is going through and also taxation आई है.

Poland तो Pakistan हमेशा से है तो वह वह तो जिसे कहते ना आदमी कुंदन हो जाता है. Right. तो वह तो कोई देखें but there is potential also. So you know it goes in a ज़रा सा ठीक होता है तो Pakistan starts giving such good returns कि आप हैरान हो जाते हैं कि यह क्या है. So so there is a lot of potential there inherent somehow. यह आप

जो भी कह लें कि वह Potential तो है लेकिन again like I said कि वह जो traveling It doesn't worry

does all the time. देखिए business में तो जिस तरह जब यह dollars we we would have closed down अगर हमारे पास यह बाहर की organization ना होती या हम बाहर जो हम dollars earn कर रहे थे वह ना करते तो we would have closed down जब इन्होंने LC's बंद किए हैं. पर Pakistan का business बंद होता है तो उसका effect होता सारी चीज़ें होती है ना तो we funded that business from our foreign business even the imports we funded through our foreign reserves. देखिए यह turbulence तो matter करती है. I think उसको सिर्फ कहते रहना turbulence turbulence है तो that कोई फ़ायदा नहीं है उसका. मेरा opinion यह है क्योंकि बहुत ज़्यादा यह हर वक्त हम अब एक problem है वह तो problem exist कर रही है उसका क्या करें? मेरे हाथ तो नहीं है ना आपके हाथ में है. So we can only talk we can probably give our comments but businesses को तो अपना काम करते रहना चाहिए. Work around तो निकालना है. Work around निकालना है और काम करना है. What's your thought on the recent salary? देखिए वह तो I am very passionate बहुत गलत हुआ है. Right. देखिए वह logical नहीं है. अभी मैंने कल ही अपने HR को खाया गया है पूरा analysis बनाकर दें कि वह कितना गया है किस किसको किस grade पर but.

How does services business. How retrogressive

what they have done. मेरे opinion में it's retrogressive. What do mean by that? देखिए पहले तो यह है कि वही documented हैं businesses जो salary को document करते हैं. ठीक है ना? So there are only those business जिनकी salary भी I don't want to talk about but देखिए जितने भी और हमारे business हैं ना you and I know that उनकी salary भी documented नहीं है. हां. तो आपने यह फ़ैसला किया कि जो अच्छा बच्चा है उसको. अच्छा जो businesses भी अच्छे हैं. हां. जो के show करते हैं अपनी salary genuine अपने लोगों की और वह जो लोग हैं वह भी tax देते हैं. अब आप देखेंगे तीनों चीज़ें साथ हों और आप ही फ़ैसला करेंगे उन्हीं को tax कर देंगे. अच्छा वह जो business documented है वह अपना business वाला भी tax दे रहा होगा. देखिए वह भी. और उसके अंदर जो दूसरी enamel ही है फिर आप कहते हैं कि कोई individual अगर services बाहर बेचते हैं मतलब as a जो आजकल gig economy की बात हो रही है तो if an individual gets those services say even thousand dollars that's not taxable. So you are pushing it's like giving incentives to export cotton but not giving incentives for high end textile products. अब yes people say कि भई उनको क्यों tax लगाओ भई उनको so either give incentive to this companies whose employees pay that kind of because आप क्या करें? Plant करें ना या तो आप इसको भी करें ना सबको tax करें. आप यह कह रहे हैं कि एक organization का cost है. Pakistan में जो product बनाता है या जो एक services export कर रहा है. Say ok एक company है वह सारे की सारी जो अपनी software services export करते हैं. उसके employees पर 35% tax लग गया. मतलब 30 आप लगा लें 25 से 40 भी मतलब जिनकी छह लाख से ऊपर है वह उस पर बहुत मैं वह देख रहा था. चले anyway twenty five percent twenty five से 40 पर agree कर लेते हैं tax. फिर आप यह कह रहे हैं कि एक foreign company अगर उन्हीं लोगों को use करती है तो उस पर tax नहीं है. So you've increase the cost of business of local companies by 25 to 40%. So essentially a पाकिस्तानी company should go out, build an office there and use. And hire individuals, right? So मेरा वही point है कि basically what you're incentivizing is कि अब आप एक दो companies बनाएंगे. एक आपकी co working company होगी और एक आपकी ग्यारहवार Technically, technically उसमें legality का issue है. हम नहीं, हम हम तो कर सकते हैं वह. We have operations outside but we don't do it because देखिए वह एक notion होती है कि you are circumventing something यह क्यों करे कोई? क्या आप बाहर से employ कर लें तो उसका फिर उसको contract पर कर लें, उसको job पर ना तब but at a higher level this is what you're doing. You're saying that local companies अगर आप software company हैं, उसकी cost of doing business in terms of salary is 25 to 40% higher than international company. If that is fair?

That doesn't make any sense. Mean top down policy level, you need dollars right now. You're talking about $10,000,000,000 IT industry and you're in base lot. Oh, term है ना कि जी,

that's a short in the arm that individuals will do and the gig economy will grow by, say, $100,000,000. So that's what you should be looking at.

Makes sense. मुझे यह बताएं कि recent जो बहुत शोर मच रहा है brain train के ऊपर talent छोड़कर जा रहा है. Talent churn हो रहा है बहुत ज़्यादा. Have you experienced that? You know maybe talent Last year हुआ था जब यह

जब बहुत devaluation और हुई problems आई थी और so so of course that was an issue and then we arrested the problem and we we we did a lot of things and now it's ok but देखिए brain drain उसी तरह है ना? आप so brain drain तो वह भी हो गया कि एक बंदा local company छोड़कर बाहर company को job करती है तो brain drain ही हो गया ना? हां. एक दिन वह छोड़कर बाहर चला जाएगा.

So yes brain drain तो इतना है कि जिसकी को हद नहीं sir. And then अगर इसी के साथ मैं link करूं talent की Pakistan में. Do you think there is ample amount of talent जो आपकी requirement है वह आपको उसके हिसाब से talent मिल रहा है regularly या आपको लग रहा है कि talent की quality yes या quantity कहीं ना कहीं चोक होती है and if there was more talent available it would have been made things easier for you. देखिए

वह तो अगर more talent is coming out वह तो आने जो जो देखिए जो growth के plans हैं and what our country और our governments want to do in terms of technology उसके लिए तो talent enough नहीं है. So there has to be some ways to either जल्द किसी की skill enhancement कहां क्या करना है? वह एक long term plan बनाना चाहिए. Maybe वह कर रहे हैं I can't comment on that. आजकल बात तो बहुत हो रही है तो maybe हो जाएगा. अभी I think the most critical thing is brain drain and this anomaly that we've talked about. We find our people. I mean I think we get our talent. I'm I'm very proud of the fact that our talent is quite world class. What we've managed to hire and retain. But the other challenges के जो policies के अंदर वह हैं और tax वगैरह I think इसको address करने की ज़रूरत था और forum ना करें तो थोड़ी देर में कर लें. Make sense. देखिए अगर आपने tax लगाना है तो company को tax लगा दें यार. अब company का यह कहना कि जी tech company को tax ही नहीं होना चाहिए. तो वह कोई logical नहीं बनता ना? हां. आप फिर individual को कह रहे हैं as a contract employee जब वह नहीं है tax और अगर आपने इनको आप वही जो export का आपका tax है दो percent, ढाई percent जो है वह लगा दें software companies को भी what's a problem? और वह basically income पर होगा my understanding या revenue पर होगा. नहीं देखिए दोनों चीज़ें होती है ना income पर होता है जो यह बाकी जितनी export हैं उन पर एक flat tax है ना I believe.

Flat tax है इस बार इन्होंने so हुआ यह इस बार कि textile के इन्होंने Whereas जो बहुत बड़ी well established company है उनका $100,000,000 का let's say income है वह उसके ऊपर अपना वह ship है तो इन्होंने switch करके 18% income tax कर दिया. ठीक है. मैं कह रहा हूं कि उनको 18 की है ना income tax तो अगर उनको

all I am saying is कि अगर उनको flat tax दिया था for that time, maybe my colleagues of the industry would not like it, but the fact is लगा दे ढाई percent. अभी देखिए अगर आपने आपने 1% रखा हुआ है उसको दो percent कर दें. Revenue के ऊपर? हां. लेकिन आप basically raw material पर ना लगाएंगे but that just destroys the business model. The ecosystem खराब कर रहे हैं ना वही दो percent उस पर भी लगा दें जो कि वह है जो gig employee है उस पर बल्कि थोड़ा सा देखिए दो पांच फीसद से कोई change नहीं होता. Businesses have to rise above that. Right. And they have to say that yes यह fair है हम देंगे.

लेकिन जब raw material उतर और कहीं से छुपा के वह logical नहीं बनता. Makes sense. आपके ख्याल में हम Pakistan में दस हज़ार, पचास हज़ार, एक लाख employees वाली IT companies क्यों नहीं बना पाए? Simple अगर एक एक big picture आपसे पूछूं India में हमने देखी बाकी दुनिया में हमने. देखिए एक तो I think

this is a एक तो we I think mist the era और होता ना steel era आता है फलांन. तो एक वह era आया था जब यह peak पर जा रहा था और यह business process outsourcing यह जब सारी हुई so एक push बनी थी कि यह outsource करना है. उस वक्त probably India was very well positioned to do that and we were not. We are not working towards that direction. तो एक तो यह है कि हमने वह जो हमेशा एक cycle होता है वह miss किया. अब नया cycle आ रहा है, product का cycle आ रहा है, लोग मतलब देखिए ना we should not miss this cycle and we should be more worried about the new cycle this year. So अब अगर हमने वह service companies नहीं बनाई तो हमें product और जो आजकल talent है जिस तरह की बात उनको nurture करना है कि दूसरे cycle में हमारे और वन सकती हैं I am sure. आपने नए cycle की बात की I going to ask you

some questions on the future you know brainstorming hat on. अगर geopolitically मैं देखूं तो मुझे नज़र आ रहा है कि you know Trump is coming back potentially and Trump is all about made in America. हमें नज़र आ रहा है कि यार Europe की aging demographic है. US और एक right wing का rise भी हो रहा है. So anti immigrant situation चल रही है. China से भी एक you know एक conflict सा चल रहा है. So potentially the way that I see it is that we might just see a lot of manufacturing going back to The US but on the back of क्योंकि वैसे अगर आप conventionally सोचते हो आप कहते क्या आपकी the the accounting doesn't make any sense you know $6,070,000 dollars का बंदा. Then when you look at कि AI तो चल ही रहा है उसके अंदर robotics में बहुत तेज़ी से काम हो रहा है particularly factory robotics के अंदर जिसमें I don't know if you saw the हवावी की जो गाड़ी की video उन्होंने निकाली है. You know end to end not a single human. That was phenomenal And so that basically what what that shows you is कि you take the human capital cost out and you automate the entire process. तो पेरा China में चीज़ produce हो रही है, America में हो रही it's the same thing. Right? The cost goes down. And so politically, you see that push. You see that push in the demographic. Twenty years later the way that I see the world is कि जो west है west के अंदर बहुत ज़्यादा manufacturing वह चीज़ें driven by automation already हो रही होंगी और उसके अंदर जो talent है वह basically Pakistan India बाहर country से बाहर बैठकर वह talent जो है ना वह let's say managed services का talent है या वह आगे पीछे चीज़ों का talent है. जहां पर अभी पचास लोग हैं वहां पर एक बंदा बैठा पूरी factory को manage कर रहा है. दो सवाल आते इसमें. And you wanna make sure that everything works in the most optimized way and you know with the least amount of failures. So obviously someone like you plays a very important role over there. दूसरा यह है कि उसके अंदर then the nature of outsourcing changes all together. Right? एक तो आपने कहा कि जिस्तन्था जिसमें products then play a very very important role where all of these factories will have like a range of different applets or services that they have sort of taken and then in terms of even human resource वह एक बड़ी different requirement आने वाली है कि जिसमें शायद जो actual software की है वह बड़ी छोटी सी product की teams हैं और you know जो जो actual work है वह शायद बड़ा different नौयियत का लोग कर रहे हो. What are your thoughts on the picture that I have painted?

It's not a bad word to paint honestly. लेकिन सारी जो automated चीज़ें आती हैं कि totally देखिए material, raw material and human cost in production is just one component. आप eliminate भी कर लेंगे supply chain. यह बहुत सी चीज़ें हैं जो करनी है और वह जब आप say America की उस पर करेंगे तो maybe it's viable, it's not viable. But the real thing to learn is कि when you go to that level of technology, the supply chain also changes. किसी ने वह programming करनी है, किसी ने वह skill develop करनी है, तो you still need people. Yes, you there is an argument to be made कि unskilled बंदे की ज़िंदगी ख़राब हो जाएगी because they they they would have nowhere to go. What do they do? So maybe they'll have to go to the lowest food chain pointing of वह शायद automated now Right. Supply chain का. But लेकिन to to achieve what you're saying, there is so much engineering and so much services and so much product of a different level that has to go in data कि वह भी तो कोई करेगा ना. तो ऐसा नहीं हो सकता कि वह.

मेरा जाती है कि problem solving as a skill will have a lot of knowledge. 100% देखिए अगर आप यह कहते हैं देखिए पहले

आप report इधर से data लेकर और एक Excel की जो report बनाते हैं. The first thing we go even in octopus we go and say is we'll eliminate Excel. अच्छा अब Excel को consider किया जाता है कि बहुत ऐसे because we'll eliminate no manual entry. Right. अब वह लोग घबराते हैं कि चल फिर क्या होगा तो जो मेरे चार लोग यह सिर्फ reports बनाते हैं तो we say कि because that data can be adulterated. We are not against them. We will train them how to do it on this. Yeah. But our data is not adulterated. What you see is what you get. Right. अब तो यह तो होगा. आप की जो skill अगर आप lawyers की बात करते हैं. They say कि if you are doing simple contract law, you are out of business. Nobody will that AI would do most of the work. आपने एक legal document बनाना है, simple legal document बनाना है that those days are gone. आपने थोड़ी research करनी है कि मुझे सारा कुछ बताओ कि यह यह कि वह देखिए ना एक law में वह देख रहे होते हैं कि कौन कौन से citation है, यह है. Those days are gone. वह paralegal वाला काम. Paralegal वाला काम खत्म तो why not? They should work on more creative educated people on a higher level of skill. तो यह तो होगा. But it's not a I mean if I look at it, I get excited. I may not be alive to see all that but I really want to be in that world which has all that. Do you see a potential

case to be made for universal basic income? A lot of people say कि यार in in so post industrial revolution वह कहा कि यार productivity तीन तो increase होगी लोग jobless हो जाएंगे. अच्छा वह हुआ यह है कि productivity तो बहुत दिन increase हो गई but we didn't get the dividends out of it. आज अब AI के time पर फिर से यह बात हो रही है कि we're looking at massive productivity increases. So now there is a growing voice in the West particularly जो यह कह रहे कि यार you know what give everybody universal basic income. Don't increase jobs. Let whoever wants additional money वह job ले ले. But rather than you know keeping this sort of a free market you know अपने खाने पीने के लिए भी jobs तुमने लेनी है that basically chips away of. Whatever

I have read about it I I I always been very intrigued about universal basic income. कई जगह उसकी बड़े अच्छे results हैं, कई जगह वो कहते हैं कि अच्छा I don't know because most of this यह जो information होती है is usually very clouded. Clouded with a lens on how the journal is writing and how the because अगर कोई purely capitalistic है even even like I am a old subscriber of Financial Times. I sometimes think that their lens is pure capitalistic and what they write has no answers clearly कि they don't like the other option तो वह कोई ना कोई case है. Case always a bias हां. Bias. तो देखिए वह I I what I have read about it I'm a big fan. Right. But on the other side, I'm not an economist. I I don't know about How it might pan out. How might out, but I think in one thing I'm sure that in developed countries, that should be the case because it doesn't make sense that you what you see when you see some poverty in countries with $60,000 per capita income tax. And how do you have homeless people? What's going on there? There is something wrong. I mean ok, so there is an argument to be made कि जो वैसे ही होते हैं इनका कब होगा. लेकिन जो भी है the society

owes that. क्या रोटी कपड़ा मकान जो है वह basically. कुछ कुछ. अब

हां whether it is possible in our country? I don't know why not? So, income ना हो तो जो हम इतना झगड़ते हैं minimum wage पर. मुझे आप यह बताएं कि क्यों नहीं हो सकती minimum wage बेहतर Pakistan में? क्या problem है? I think last time so आमिर महेदंर he started an initiative. Last time वह Pakistan में था कि यार हम minimum wage voluntarily बढ़ा देते हैं and let's go. So we all he started it, we joined him and we and then we try to woo a lot of industries. कुछ आई, कुछ नहीं आई, बहुत थोड़े से लोग. But I genuinely think कि अगर आप total देखें तो यह कैसे कोई organization सोच सकती है कि यह minimum wage है मैंने इससे भी कम देना है और वह गुज़ारा मतलब how how does that work for a business? वह eventually वह बंदा जाएगा वह जाकर कहीं और से मांगेगा वह double jobs करेगा वह कहीं ना कहीं productivity effect होगी. जब तक आप उसकी basic अब संबूरी कर देना universal basic income is is many notches above the concept of minimum wage. Right. अब वह maybe वहां तो पहले तो यह तो शुरू करें हमारे यहां.

Makes sense. I have the last question with the one hour forty minute mark. काफी लंबी भी हो गई है. मुझे यह बताएं कि do you read a lot? You mentioned financial times and. I I read a lot. Do you read books or articles or

bit of all? I I only read for

मतलब newspapers but otherwise I read a lot of fiction. If if I were to ask you for three recommendations in terms of books what would they be?

देखिए मैं मेरे वह थे. Good be fiction as well. हां तो recency effect होता है फिर. Right. So I can ok one book I can tell you which had a huge effect on me. There is a Somerset mom book, उसकी वह autobiography, I'll I'll tell you the name. Send me the by the way. Of human bondage. Right. That had a very big, mean while growing up I I was really affected by that. आज को मैंने फिर एक beach में एक किताब पढ़ी थी अभी पिछले दिनों को दो तीन साल पहले and which I think in modern times की बहुत एक writer है Roynton Mystery. What was again उसका नाम? लेकिन जो third minute पर ही है वह उसकी series भी बनी है मुझे किसी ने बताया है. That book is lessons in chemistry.

Right. I think it's a very if you have to read a book right now I highly recommend that. If you can send the links to these three books I would love to put that in the description as well so that people can I will have to check it out as well? But I'm gonna wrap this up. You so रोइंटन

mystery book is fine balance. बताया

साहब thank you so much for you know giving us your time. I going to ask you one last question. How do you see Pakistan of twenty fifty, twenty six years from now?

Yeah, I can't predict but I can only say कि देखिए हम हमेशा भाईसान की problems की बात करते हैं. But we don't realize कि बड़ी जल्दी उसकी problems कोई इतनी major problems नहीं है. What I mean जो debt की भी हम बात करते हैं थोड़ी structural reforms and जरा सा ठीक हो जाए ना so it can be a top place to live. और वह बड़ी similar problems हैं by the way वह बाकी भी countries की यह problems नहीं हैं at some point. Without fifty years. It is उससे बहुत बुरी रही हैं. I mean यह तो कुछ भी नहीं है. We have a you know generally an intelligent population and if we

educate them. I think incentive structure अगर fix कर देना तो वह बंदे खुद निकाल लेंगे बाद शायद हां लेकिन मेरे ख्याल में थोड़ा सा I I I am always bullish about पास. चलो I hope you are Honestly I always bullish about. Sir thank you so much for coming in and sharing all that insight. Thank you so so much for watching. अगर आपके episode पसंद आई है तो दोस्तों यहां से ज़रूर share करिएगा. नीचे comment section में मुझे जाकर बताएं what do you think about you know doing an IT You were watching thought behind things. Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.